‘I don’t.’ She’d tightened instinctively.
He had said nothing for a mile or two, handling the car with his normal expertise, and then he had made some fatuous remark about the play they’d just seen, one that hadn’t necessitated an answer but that had made a reluctant smile come to her lips. And so the moment had passed.
His goodnight kiss had left her aching for more, as his kisses always did, but again—analysed in the cold light of morning without the normal unbearable sexual tension sending her into a spin—she felt he had been playing a part. So far but no further, mentally, emotionally and physically, that was how she felt it was. But then, was she really any different?
She shut her eyes tightly, biting on her lip as she washed a breakfast plate with unnecessary vigour. He unnerved her more now than when she had first met him, that was the truth of the matter. The more she was with him, the more she wanted to be with him, and that wasn’t how it was supposed to have been.
Maybe if they
had gone to bed, if they’d become lovers in the full sense of the word, this crazy attraction would have burnt itself out? And then she curled her lip at the stupidity of the thought. It might well have on his side, in fact she didn’t doubt it for a minute, but she wasn’t built like that. The reason she had tried and tried for her marriage to work even when logic had said it was doomed was because she’d committed her body as well as her heart. The two were inseparable where she was concerned. It might not be the prevailing fashion but she couldn’t help that. She couldn’t bear the thought of being just another notch on his bedpost, figuratively speaking of course, she added, thinking of the massive water-bed as she smiled wryly.
Kay flexed her shoulders, which had become tense with the nature of her thoughts.
Had she been wrong in keeping any contact between Mitchell and the twins to an absolute minimum? she asked herself soberly. Had that added to the contrived, meretricious nature of it all? One minute she was being dined and wined in the most fabulous of places or being whisked off to goodness knew where with money no object, the next she was back home changing the girls’ beds in the middle of the night when they’d succumbed to the stomach bug playing havoc at their school, or checking their thick curls in response to a letter from the nurse who’d warned parents a child in their class had been found to be lousy.
The thing was, she hadn’t wanted Georgia and Emily to get used to Mitchell, to get fond of him, she admitted reluctantly. It wasn’t fair on them. He had made it plain on that first date that long-term fidelity wasn’t an option, and she’d known that this friendship that wasn’t a friendship but defied any label she could think of wouldn’t last. But how could you explain that to two little girls who had been determined to like him from the first?
She sighed heavily, finishing the washing-up and drying her hands on a towel before she boiled a kettle for the lemon drink she was making for her mother. Leonora had been suffering from what she’d insisted was a cold the last couple of days, but this morning the older woman had been too ill to get out of bed and Kay had called the doctor. She suspected her mother had fallen foul of the vicious flu bug that was sweeping the country, but the hacking cough that had become much worse during the night spoke of a chest infection on top of the virus.
Kay was just at the bottom of the stairs with the mug of hot lemon when a knock at the front door announced Dr Galbraith.
The doctor was cheerful enough as he examined Leonora, but once downstairs in the sitting room he lowered his voice after glancing at the twins—snuggled together watching a Christmas cartoon in front of the fire— and said quietly, ‘We need to watch that chest infection. I don’t want it developing into anything more serious, so don’t take any nonsense from her about getting out of bed. A side effect of this particular virus is inflammation of the lungs in my more elderly patients, not that your mother would appreciate being referred to in that regard,’ he added with a wry smile. ‘Plenty of liquids along with the antibiotics and paracetamol, all right?’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’ Kay nodded and then wished she hadn’t as the headache she’d woken up with made itself known.
‘You look a bit peaky yourself,’ Dr Galbraith said as he took in her pale face, the whiteness of her skin in sharp contrast to her red curls. ‘You might be going down with it—it does tend to run through a whole household. Get plenty of paracetamol in and call the surgery if you need to. Frankly, if you’d got anything planned over Christmas I’d cancel it now.’
Great. And a happy Christmas to you too! ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Kay repeated, and saw him out into the frosty morning, shutting the door quickly as the icy chill made her shiver.
‘Shoes, coats and hats, girls,’ she said with deliberate brightness, knowing the twins wouldn’t appreciate being pulled away from their Saturday morning programmes on the TV. ‘We’ve got to go and get some medicine for Grandma, and if you’re good we might call in the cake shop and buy two of those gingerbread men you like so much.’
Fortunately the row of shops comprising a small supermarket, chemist, cake shop, butcher’s and grocer’s was only a couple of streets away, but nevertheless Kay was regretting she hadn’t had one of the vans for the weekend by the time she and the girls got home later that morning. She was feeling worse by the minute and now Emily was complaining her head hurt her, and refused to eat her gingerbread man, which she normally loved.
After remaking her mother’s bed and giving Leonora the antibiotics and paracetamol with another hot lemon drink, Kay went downstairs to find Emily lying listlessly on the sofa with her teddy bear. When her daughter refused a chocolate off the little Christmas tree standing next to the TV, Kay knew she was ill, although Georgia was bouncing around as usual.
She felt the small forehead, alarmed to find it was far too hot, and in bending over nearly landed on top of Emily when she went all giddy. Darn it, they were dropping like flies and Christmas was only three days away, and the girls had so been looking forward to it.
Emily tucked up in a blanket in her pyjamas on the sofa after a dose of paracetamol for her temperature, Kay made herself a fortifying cup of tea and took stock. Fortunately she’d made the decision to close the office all the following week as Christmas day was on the Tuesday, so work wasn’t a problem. They had enough food to last them for a while, although she had been going to do the big Christmas shop on Monday—still, she might feel better by then, and she could perhaps call Peter in to sit with the girls while she went out. No, that wouldn’t do. She didn’t want to infect Peter and his family for Christmas. Oh, she would manage somehow; she couldn’t think of that now with her head aching so badly.
Mitchell. She sat up straighter in the kitchen chair. She had been going to go out with him this evening; she must call him and explain.
It was Henry who answered the telephone, but within moments Mitchell’s deep rich voice said, ‘Kay? Henry said your mother isn’t well?’
‘It’s the flu along with a chest infection, and now Emily is feeling poorly. I’m sorry but I can’t make tonight.’
There was a pause, and then he said, ‘How would it be if I hired a babysitter? I know a couple of my friends swear by a certain—’
‘No.’ She didn’t let him finish. She would no more have let a stranger—however well recommended—babysit her girls than fly to the moon. ‘I’m not feeling too good myself, actually, so we’d better leave it.’
Another pause, and then he said evenly, ‘This isn’t because of last night, is it?’
‘What?’ She didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
‘I have a feeling the drawbridge is being raised,’ he said softly, ‘rather than the barriers coming down.’
Why did men think everything was about them all the time? If she had been feeling better she would have let rip; as it was she just said quietly, ‘Mitchell, my mother is ill in bed, my daughter has a temperature and I don’t feel great myself. Those are the facts, okay? I’ll ring you.’ And she put the telephone down. She couldn’t argue with him, not today. He’d have to think what he liked.
The telephone rang almost immediately and she breathed deeply and braced herself before picking it up.